World Festival of Animated Film Animafest was founded in Zagreb fifty years ago and is one of the oldest festivals dedicated to animation. The exhibition Animafest Zagreb 1972 – 2022 summarises the Festival’s half-century history. Alongside the central exhibition on the Festival’s history, there are also four thematic exhibitions that are traditionally held as part of the Festival’s accompanying programme: Behind the Scenes and Nedeljko Dragić: The Line Tamer, the latter being this year’s laureate of the Animafest Lifetime Achievement Award, the exhibition of storyboards by the Dutch master of animation Paul Driessen, and the exhibition of photographs by the Finnish author Timo Viljakainen Behind the Eyes of the World, who has been portraying animators with closed eyes in different ambiences since 1990.
The exhibition Animafest Zagreb 1972 – 2022 encompasses a selection of awarded animated films and presents their authors, and also includes festival jingles, awards, publications, posters, drawings, archival holdings, and photographs. In chronological order, a special place at the exhibition is dedicated to the Festival’s visual identity, designed and developed with each new edition by animators and graphic designers. The first logotype was authored by Borivoj Dovniković Bordo, the first poster was devised by Zlatko Bourek, while Zvonimir Lončarić conceived the festival mascot Mandlek – the popular figure in a bowler hat.
The exhibition Nedeljko Dragić: The Line Tamer, is dedicated to Nedeljko Dragić, this year’s laureate of Animafest’s Lifetime Achievement Award, one of the most prominent authors of the Zagreb School of Animated Film. On this occasion, his key works in the field of animation are exhibited. His most significant films were produced at Zagreb Film within the framework of the Animated Film Studio in which he came in the early 1960s. Already recognised as an exceptionally talented drawing artist, he was preoccupied since the beginning with subjects of everyday life, alienation, and human solitude. Alongside the most significant films, the exhibition also features storyboards, drawings, cels, awards, and other archival holdings that testify of the fact that he was also a superb illustrator, cartoonist, caricaturist, and graphic designer.
The group exhibition Behind the Scenes presents for the fourth time the works by authors whose films have entered the competition of short and student films. The idea of the exhibition is to show the heterogeneity and diversity of techniques and authorial approaches that stand behind the selected titles, i.e., the stages preceding a film’s completion. This year, the call has been answered by 45 authors from the student competition of Animafest 2022.
The exhibition Animafest Zagreb 1972 – 2022 provides an insight into the rich history of the Festival as a cultural and social phaenomenon that still plays an important role in creating new artistic trends. The artistic and archival holdings have been collected from Zagreb Film, Croatian State Archives, Museum of Contemporary Art, archive of the organisation bearer Hulahop d.o.o., and private collections of Veljko Krulčić, Nedeljko Dragić, Stjepan Lončarić, and Margit Antauer Buba.
Authors of the exhibition Animafest Zagreb 1972 – 2022: Vesna Meštrić (MSU Zagreb), Margit Antauer Buba (Animafest Zagreb), Paola Orlić (Animafest Zagreb)
Exhibition design of Animafest Zagreb 1972 – 2022: Vedran Kasap and Ozana Ursić (Studio Clinica)
Visual identity of the exhibition Animafest Zagreb 1972 – 2022: Vladimir Končar
Curator of the exhibitions Behind the Scenes and Behind the Eyes of the World by Timo Viljakainen: Paola Orlić
Curator of the exhibition Nedeljko Dragić: The Line Tamer: Vesna Meštrić
